Vinsetta Garage to Serve as Namesake for TV Show

Mouths have been watering since , and now comes word that it also will be the namesake of a new show on the Discovery Channel's Velocity Network.

Restaurant co-owner Curt Catallo confirmed a report this week in The Detroit News that Autoweek's Vinsetta Garage will premiere at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 3. It will be the first of 13 episodes to air.

"Autoweek’s Vinsetta Garage unleashes our passion for the automobile and the fervor that fuels us," reads the show's website. "Thirty minutes of unadulterated car enthusiasm served hot off the manifold and torn from Autoweek’s editorial pages – covering everything from design to driving, customization, cooking and cruisin’, travel, technology and more."

Autoweek is a Detroit-based automotive news and lifestyle magazine whose vice president and publisher, KC Crain, also is a co-owner of Vinsetta Garage.

Catallo, his business partner, said Friday that the Berkley site is expected reopen as the Vinsetta Garage restaurant during the first quarter of 2012.

"We are just doing all we can to get there and obviously these old buildings pose unique challenges," Catallo said. "But, we're gluttons for punishment."

The Woodward property opened Nov. 30, 1919, and operated as an auto repair business until it closed at the end of 2010.

The Vinsetta Garage team has been hard at work on the building's plumbing, sewers and "all of the backbones," said Catallo, who added that his wife, Ann Stevenson, will handle the design details.

The menu also remains a work in progress. Catallo said Vinsetta Garage's dishes will be tested out at his other two restaurants – the Clarkston Union Bar & Kitchen and the Union Woodshop, both located in Clarkston.

In August, being served at Vinsetta Garage.

"We're already starting to engineer the team for Vinsetta Garage," Catallo said Friday. He added that those who would like to submit an application to work at the restaurant can contact the Clarkston Union Bar & Kitchen (248-620-6100) or the Union Woodshop (248-625-5660) for more information.

"We're excited to be a part of Berkley," Catallo said. "We're working very hard to give Berkley a joint it can be proud of."